Within fifteen minutes Algy Ferrers, sitting back in an easy chair in his quarters, glancing out of a window with a look of absolute boredom, received a telephone call.
"Colonel North"s compliments, and will you come to his house at once?"
was the brief message.
"Now, I shouldn"t wonder if old Ruggles had forgotten to mind his own business," muttered Algy disconsolately, as he reached for his fatigue cap.
"Mr. Ferrers," was the colonel"s stern greeting, "every day your conduct becomes more incomprehensible!"
"And every day, sir, I might say," retorted the young man pleasantly, "the Army becomes harder to understand. I don"t wish to be guilty of any impertinence, sir, but wouldn"t it be well to have a law enacted that officers from civil life should be appointed wholly from clerks, who have learned how to keep office hours and never do any thinking for themselves?"
"There might be some advantage in that plan, Mr. Ferrers," replied the colonel grimly. "And I can"t help feeling that you would give infinitely more satisfaction here if you had first been trained a bit in one of your father"s many offices. I don"t suppose you have the least idea, sir, of what a grave offense you have committed to-day?"
"I expected to be praised, sir," replied Algy almost testily, "for having been highly humane to the men under my command."
"Humane!" exploded Colonel North. "Bah! Mr. Ferrers, do you imagine that our regulars are so many weaklings, that they have to come in when it rains, or stay in when the sun shines? Bah! You have been guilty of gross disobedience of orders, and you are an officer, sir--supposed to be engaged in teaching obedience to enlisted men. That is all, sir--you may go to your quarters!"
By the time that young Mr. Ferrers reached his own quarters he found Lieutenant Prescott there, though the latter did not say a word about Colonel North having ordered him to make the call.
Algy immediately started in upon what was, for him, a furious tirade.
"Do you know, dear chap," he wound up, "I can"t always understand a man like old Papa North. Sometimes I think he"s just a beast!"
But Prescott"s laughing advice was:
"Hold yourself in, Ferrers; your hoops are cracked."
"Bah!" stormed Lieutenant Algy. "An Army post is a crazy place for a fellow to go when looking for sympathy or reason."
In the meantime A Company"s men had spread the joke through enlisted men"s barracks.
"What"s the use!" growled Private Hinkey to a group of private soldiers.
"Ferrers is just a plumb fool, and all the colonels in the world can"t ever make anything else of him. Ferrers is a born idiot!"
Sergeant Hal Overton paused just at the edge of the group.
"Hinkey," the boyish non-com. observed dryly, "if that"s your opinion, you"ll show a lot of wisdom and good sense in keeping it to yourself."
"Oh, you shut up!" sneered Hinkey. "No one spoke to you. Move on. Your opinions are not wanted here."
Words cannot convey the intent in Hickey"s words, though it was plain enough to all who stood near by.
Hinkey plainly sought to convey that no man in barracks had any use for Sergeant Overton, a man as good as convicted of having robbed Private William Green.
Nor did Hal, by any means, miss the intended slur. Yet he was above taking up any quarrel on personal grounds.
"Hinkey," rebuked the young sergeant, "you"re not answering a non-commissioned officer with the proper amount of respect."
"What"s the use?" jeered the ugly soldier. "I don"t feel any."
"Silence, my man!"
"Then since you"re putting on airs just because of your chevrons, you"d better set an example of silence yourself. Then your lesson will wash down all the better."
The other soldiers in the group took no part in the conversation. They did not attempt to "show sides," but Sergeant Hal knew that they were looking on and listening with keen interest.
It would never do for this boy who was a sergeant to "back down" before such an affront, both to himself and to good discipline.
"He"s trying to make me mad, so that I"ll make it seem like a personal affair," thought Hal Overton swiftly. "I"ll keep cool and fool the fellow!"
Hinkey, after glaring defiantly and contemptuously at the young sergeant, turned on his heel and started away.
"Halt, there, my man!" ordered Sergeant Hal coolly, yet at the same time sternly.
Hinkey kept on as though he had not heard.
Without an instant"s hesitation, his manner still cool but his face white and set, Sergeant Overton leaped after his man, laying a hand heavily on the private"s shoulder.
"I halted you, my man!"
"Did you?" said Hinkey. "I didn"t hear it."
With that, he slipped out from under Hal Overton"s detaining grasp, turned his back and once more started onward.
"Careful there, Hinkey!" called one of the soldiers warningly.
But the sullen soldier was now beyond any sense of caution.
As Hal again grabbed him, this time with both hands, and swinging him about, Hinkey thrust his face menacingly close to Overton"s.
"What do you want, Overton? Maybe I"ve got it."
"Attention!"
"I"m listening," growled Hinkey, his whole carriage slouching.
"Stand at attention!"
"Hinkey, you"re wholly disrespectful and insubordinate!"
Out of the corner of his eye the soldier saw his late companions silently drawing nearer.
"If I"m disrespectful, I"m disrespectful to nothing!" he retorted derisively.
Then he added with more insulting directness:
"Or to less than nothing!"
"Hinkey, are you going to stand at attention and be silent until I"m through with you?"